Each of the coastal cities was an independent kingdom noted for the special activities of its inhabitants. Tyre and Sidon were important maritime and trade centers; Gubla (later known as Byblos and now as Jubayl) and Berytus (present-day Beirut) were trade and religious centers.
Around 2800 BC Canaanites traded cedar timber, olive oil and wine from Byblos for metals and ivory from Egypt.
The study led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England shows that most of the Lebanese ancestry is Phoenician, a maritime culture that flourished for almost 3000 years (c. 3200–539 BC).
It was said that the links go further back to the Canaanites, the historic and biblical people – who include the Phoenician people. They have invented the first alphabet where the Latin alphabet derives from. Also, the Phoenicians were among the first people that produced wine.
The Phoenicians mastered the art of navigation and dominated the Mediterranean Sea trade for over 500 years.
This civilization has left a huge impact in Lebanon. Famous for building cities, the Phoenicians have left an architectural heritage wherever they went.
Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Phoenician cities in the 4th century BCE meant that the Levant came under Hellenistic rule. In Lebanon, philosophy flourished under the influence of the Greeks. Diodoros of Tyre, a member of the Peripatetic school, is a well-known philosopher.
In 64 BC Roman general Pompey added Seleucid Syria and Lebanon to the Roman Empire. Lebanon was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century and remained under its rule for the next 400 years. Lebanon became a republic in 1926 and achieved independence in 1943.
Ancient Lebanon
